Confessions of an Economic Hit Man
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| Confessions of an Economic Hit Man | |
| Author | John Perkins |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Berrett-Koehler Publishers |
| Publication date | 2004 |
| Pages | 250p |
| ISBN | 0-452-28708-1 |
| OCLC | 55138900 |
Confessions of an Economic Hit Man (ISBN 0-452-28708-1) is a book written by John Perkins and published in 2004. It provides Perkins' account of his career with consulting firm Chas. T. Main. Before employment with the firm, he interviewed for a job with the National Security Agency (NSA). Perkins claims that this interview effectively constituted an independent screening which led to his subsequent hiring by Einar Greve, a member of the firm (and alleged NSA liaison) to become a self-described "economic hit man".
John Perkins and his role as Economic Hitman (EHM) is one of the main themes in part II of the movie Zeitgeist, released October 2008.
Contents |
[edit] Content
"Covertly recruited by the United States National Security Agency and on the payroll of an international consulting firm, he traveled the world—to Indonesia, Panama, Ecuador, Colombia, Saudi Arabia, Iran and other strategically important countries...Perkins reveals the hidden mechanics of imperial control behind some of the most dramatic events in recent history, such as the fall of the Shah of Iran, the death of Panamanian president Omar Torrijos, and the U.S. invasions of Panama and Iraq."[1]
According to his book, Perkins' function was to convince the political and financial leadership of underdeveloped countries to accept enormous development loans from institutions like the World Bank and USAID. Saddled with huge debts they could not hope to pay, these countries were forced to acquiesce to political pressure from the United States on a variety of issues. Perkins argues in his book that developing nations were effectively neutralized politically, had their wealth gaps driven wider and economies crippled in the long run. In this capacity Perkins recounts his meetings with some prominent individuals, including Graham Greene and Omar Torrijos. Perkins describes the role of an EHM as follows:
Economic hit men (EHMs) are highly paid professionals who cheat countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars. They funnel money from the World Bank, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and other foreign "aid" organizations into the coffers of huge corporations and the pockets of a few wealthy families who control the planet's natural resources. Their tools included fraudulent financial reports, rigged elections, payoffs, extortion, sex, and murder. They play a game as old as empire, but one that has taken on new and terrifying dimensions during this time of globalization.
The epilogue to the 2006 edition provides a rebuttal to the current move by the G8 nations to forgive Third World debt. Perkins charges that the proposed conditions for this debt forgiveness require countries to sell their health, education, electric, water and other public services to corporations. Those countries would also have to discontinue subsidies and trade restrictions that support local business, but accept the continued subsidization of certain G8 businesses by the US and other G8 countries, and the erection of trade barriers on imports that threaten G8 industries.
In the book, Perkins repeatedly denies the existence of a "conspiracy." Instead, Perkins carefully discusses the role of corporatocracy.
| “ | "I was initially recruited while I was in business school back in the late sixties by the National Security Agency, the nation’s largest and least understood spy organization; but ultimately I worked for private corporations. The first real economic hit man was back in the early 1950’s, Kermit Roosevelt, the grandson of Teddy, who overthrew of government of Iran, a democratically elected government, Mossadegh’s government who was Time‘s magazine person of the year; and he was so successful at doing this without any bloodshed—well, there was a little bloodshed, but no military intervention, just spending millions of dollars and replaced Mossadegh with the Shah of Iran. At that point, we understood that this idea of economic hit man was an extremely good one. We didn’t have to worry about the threat of war with Russia when we did it this way. The problem with that was that Roosevelt was a C.I.A. agent. He was a government employee. Had he been caught, we would have been in a lot of trouble. It would have been very embarrassing. So, at that point, the decision was made to use organizations like the C.I.A. and the N.S.A. to recruit potential economic hit men like me and then send us to work for private consulting companies, engineering firms, construction companies, so that if we were caught, there would be no connection with the government.[2] - Nov 4 '04 interview | ” |
Perkins began writing Confessions of an Economic Hit Man in the 1980s. "Threats or bribes always convinced me to stop" he says in the book.
[edit] Controversy and criticism
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This article's Criticism or Controversy section(s) may mean the article does not present a neutral point of view of the subject. It may be better to integrate the material in such sections into the article as a whole. |
Perkins's first boss at Chas. T. Main, Einar Greve, initially declared to journalists that "basically [Perkins's] story is true" and that "what John's book says is, there was a conspiracy to put all these countries on the hook, and that happened. Whether or not it was some sinister plot or not is up to interpretation..." [1] Subsequently, he denied Perkins's allegation that he ever worked as a liaison with the NSA and contradicted other claims made in Perkins's book, stating that Perkins "has convinced himself that a lot of this stuff is true."[3] Perkins comments on Greve's change of heart in the "Epilogue" of "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man." He points out that Greve initially supported the truth of the book, only to switch his opinion several months later. Perkins suggests that Greve was pressured by outside forces to denounce the book as false.
Columnist Sebastian Mallaby disputes many of Perkins' arguments, including Perkins' claim that 51 of the world's 100 "largest economies" are companies, rather than countries; a value-added comparison done by the UN, he says, shows the number to be 29.[4] This comparison can be done oneself by looking at List of countries by GDP and List of companies by revenue which gives a rough answer of 46 for the year 2007 / 2008. If one looks at 2000, however, the number was 51.[5]
Articles in the New York Times and Boston Magazine, as well as a press release issued by the United States Department of State, have referred to a lack of documentary or testimonial evidence to corroborate the claim that the NSA was involved in his hiring to Chas T. Main. In addition, the author of the State Department release states that the NSA "is a cryptological (codemaking and codebreaking) organization, not an economic organization" and that its missions do not involve "anything remotely resembling placing economists at private companies in order to increase the debt of foreign countries."[6]
[edit] External links
[edit] References
- ^ "John Perkins, author, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man". Financial Sense Newshour with Jim Puplava (Financial Sense). http://www.financialsense.com/Experts/2005/Perkins.html. Retrieved on 9 Jan 09.
- ^ "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man: How the U.S. Uses Globalization to Cheat Poor Countries Out of Trillions". Democracy Now: The war and peace report. 9 Nov 04. http://www.democracynow.org/2004/11/9/confessions_of_an_economic_hit_man. Retrieved on 9 Jan 09.
- ^ Tkacik, Maureen, "The True Confessions of an Economic Hit Man," Boston Magazine, July 2005.
- ^ The Facts Behind the 'Confessions' by Sebastian Mallaby, Washington Post Op-Ed, 2006-02-26
- ^ "Of the world's 100 largest economic entities, 51 are now corporations and 49 are countries (2000)". http://www.corporations.org/system/top100.html.
- ^ Confessions – or Fantasies – of an Economic Hit Man?, US Department of State, 2006-05-10
[edit] Additional reading
- New Confessions and Revelations from the World of Economic Hit Men, John Perkins, 2007-03-15.
- Confessions of an Economic Hitman(Video interview of author, John Perkins [Kinetic Reaction])
- John Perkins talks about his book with NOW's David Brancaccio (video), 2005-03-04.
- Confessions of an Economic Hit Man: How the U.S. Uses Globalization to Cheat Poor Countries Out of Trillions, Interview with Amy Goodman, Democracy Now!, 2004-11-09.
- In hock to Uncle Sam, The Guardian, Nick Lezard, 2006-02-10.
- Recipe for empire, New Statesman, March 6, 2006, Paul Kingsnorth
- The sinister side of U.S. biz; Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins, The Capital Times (Madison, Wisconsin), July 29, 2005, By Judie Kleinmaier
- Incapable catharsis, The Weekend Australian, February 18, 2006, Matthew Bright
- Hit and Miss; There are good reasons "the mainstream media" has ignored John Perkins' Confessions of an Economic Hit Man., East Bay Express (California), February 1, 2006.
- Undermining poor nations in the name of profit, The Boston Globe, February 08, 2006, by Michael Langan
- A miss not a hit, Sunday Times (London), March 5, 2006, David Charters
- Confessions--or Fantasies-- of an Economic Hitman, US Department of State
- Conscience, confession from an agent of greed, The Seattle Times, January 22, 2006, Steve Weinberg
- A hit man repents, The Guardian, 2006-01-28.
